David Quinn replied: If you open your eyes and unblock your ears, you won't have to keep asking it.

By opening my eyes to what is the question I've been asking you to answer, but you keep dodging me with your little quips. Now what am I to open my eyes to look for intelligently? Now you want me to open my ears to hear what? Elaborate please!

jufa asked David Quinn, Like do you know or don't you know how?: "Ultimately, the only thing that is without cause is Nature" itself

David Quinn replied: I do know.

If you knew David, you would answer my questions concerning this matter.

jufa asked David Quinn: How can the following be true?: "By opening my eyes and being intelligent. If you want to understand the fundamental nature of all things, then defining Nature or Reality to be everything is the only rational option." IF the Nature of intelligence has no cause, being Nature has no cause, by your words?

David Quinn replied: Intelligence has causes, the same as anything else in Nature. But Nature itself is beginningless and therefore without cause.

In order for intelligence to have a cause, there must be logic for its existence in Nature. But there is no logic to existence, therefore no logic to Nature. This boils down to where there is no logic for a beginning to anything to be found, the sentient mind cannot logically reason anything. Should this be untrue, then you can give me an intelligent logical reason for Nature to be. Should you not be able to answer this, all you say is speculation, theory, concepts, and spitting in the wind.

Never give power to anything a person believes is their source of strength - jufa

jufa wrote:In order for intelligence to have a cause, there must be logic for its existence in Nature. But there is no logic to existence, therefore no logic to Nature. This boils down to where there is no logic for a beginning to anything to be found, the sentient mind cannot logically reason anything. Should this be untrue, then you can give me an intelligent logical reason for Nature to be. Should you not be able to answer this, all you say is speculation, theory, concepts, and spitting in the wind.

I can barely make head or tail of any of this. What does the phrase "the logic to existence" mean? I have no idea.

Things simply come into being through causal conditions - and that's all there is to it. Human intelligence, for example, evolved via the mechanisms of natural selection. Our becoming conscious of our surroundings, our ability to form concepts and find logical links between things, proved advantageous in our evolutionary struggle to adapt and survive. Any reference to the logic of existence (whatever that means) is irrelevent.

jufa wrote:In order for intelligence to have a cause, there must be logic for its existence in Nature. But there is no logic to existence, therefore no logic to Nature. This boils down to where there is no logic for a beginning to anything to be found, the sentient mind cannot logically reason anything. Should this be untrue, then you can give me an intelligent logical reason for Nature to be. Should you not be able to answer this, all you say is speculation, theory, concepts, and spitting in the wind.

I can barely make head or tail of any of this. What does the phrase "the logic to existence" mean? I have no idea.

Things simply come into being through causal conditions - and that's all there is to it. Human intelligence, for example, evolved via the mechanisms of natural selection. Our becoming conscious of our surroundings, our ability to form concepts and find logical links between things, proved advantageous in our evolutionary struggle to adapt and survive. Any reference to the logic of existence (whatever that means) is irrelevent.

-

I know you don't understnd. Man only understand what is beneficial to his interpretations of speculation.

All I have asked you to do was to give logical intellectual reasons as to how you have concluded NATURE HAS NO CAUSE. What is irrelevant is there is no relevant truth to your statement "Ultimately, the only thing that is without cause is Nature." Justify it with your tell me how you came to this conclusion intellectually.

How did natural selection began in fire?Never give power to anything a person believes is their source of strength - jufa

Syn-chronicity = things that coincide in time & space. A concurrence. I also think of 'synchronicity' as a sort of 'call & response', a language, a communication, but one that is not language-based (necessarily). The musical simile is very good: an intonation that vibrates other strings.

It is quite unfair to say that perception of synchronicity is titillation of the 'ego'. It seems to me that synchronous events in a person's life have to do with the next step for that person. Did they choose it without knowing they chose it? Perhaps. Did some part of a Greater Whole choose it for them? Is there really a difference?

The level or purity of a synchronicity very much has to do with the quality and development of the person receiving it. Self-cultivation (within Kierkegaard's 'three dimensions') might be cultivating sensitivity to Meaning on various platforms. The more interconnections there are between 'levels', the more levels of resonance are possible.

The Art of Setting Up Correspondences is a conscious involvement with or perhaps 'playing in' that acausal connectedness. What comes out of it, again, seems to depend on the sort of person that went in in the first place. Harold Bloom in his book Omens of the Millenia (Presagios del Milenio) makes reference to the Third Book of Enoch when an angelic visitation led to a complete and awesome vision experience where the person became 'like a glowing ember'. But, in popular culture, the crass and vulgar angelology has it that your pet has an angel and you can help your pet's evolution by doing thus and such...

Ideas, ideals, meaning, value, art, truth, love---can be brought to very high levels, or simply never really get off the ground.

PS: I arrived at GF through a very clear synchronicity (good for me, bad for y'all I suppose!) I remember it very clearly. One learns to pay attention to them. It is a sort of 'dance'.

The fragmented thoughts and ways of man are ideas, opinions, theories, concepts and imagined pictures of his outer objective visions which influence his inner subjective feelings. The pictures and influences are the building blocks which anchor the human mind to the collective universal slave mentality which causes men to believe their true nature is tied in DNA genetic codes which recycle human attributes. Attributes of good and evil which cause dualism, and man's opposition to himself, staging wars against his omnipresent Spirit. It is a civil war “against principalities, against powers, against rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places,” continuously being waged in the midst of his being. A war of constant tension, stress, of communicative words, understanding, and dead end human knowledge, which lacks permanent principles and patterns of reality because of death of the flesh body.

Never give power to anything a person believes is their source of strength - jufa

David Quinn wrote: Human intelligence, for example, evolved via the mechanisms of natural selection. Our becoming conscious of our surroundings, our ability to form concepts and find logical links between things, proved advantageous in our evolutionary struggle to adapt and survive. Any reference to the logic of existence (whatever that means) is irrelevent.

You're violating your own philosophy, David. Don't mix "scientific modelling" with causation. The mechanism of natural selection appears as part of what we are. You can't see beyond that, so don't mix a scientific model with analytic truths. Natural selection appears as a powerful force in the creation of human consciousness, and causation governs natural selection. There are things about consciousness we don't know, so just be honest. Do a little research in Bohm's theory of QM.

Have you even made the effort to understand Bohm's work? If not, I think you should feel some bit of shame.

jufa wrote:I know you don't understnd. Man only understand what is beneficial to his interpretations of speculation.

These two sentences contradict each other....

In the interests of consistency they should read: "I speculate that you don't understand. Man only understands what is beneficial to his interpretations of speculation, at least according to my speculation."

All I have asked you to do was to give logical intellectual reasons as to how you have concluded NATURE HAS NO CAUSE.

As I've already explained, since Nature is everything, there is nothing before Nature. Causality stretches back forever.

David Quinn wrote: Human intelligence, for example, evolved via the mechanisms of natural selection. Our becoming conscious of our surroundings, our ability to form concepts and find logical links between things, proved advantageous in our evolutionary struggle to adapt and survive. Any reference to the logic of existence (whatever that means) is irrelevent.

I was simply illustrating the causal nature of intelligence. You're right in saying that scientific modelling and analytical truths are two entirely different things. But that doesn't mean we can't call upon science to stimulate us to think analytically or use it to illustrate specific analytical truths. Just as you probably do with Bohm.

Have you even made the effort to understand Bohm's work? If not, I think you should feel some bit of shame.

I've looked into him in the past. He's interesting, but I found nothing that was directly relevant to the spiritual path.

David Quinn wrote:Have you even made the effort to understand Bohm's work? If not, I think you should feel some bit of shame.I've looked into him in the past. He's interesting, but I found nothing that was directly relevant to the spiritual path.

That's actually true, it's not directly relevant.

My work in these next years will be in symbiosis with yours. As your work lives on it, there will be a symbiosis between the culturally masculine, and the culturally feminine, and it may produce a child.

Alex Jacob wrote:Syn-chronicity = things that coincide in time & space. A concurrence. I also think of 'synchronicity' as a sort of 'call & response', a language, a communication, but one that is not language-based (necessarily). The musical simile is very good: an intonation that vibrates other strings.

It is quite unfair to say that perception of synchronicity is titillation of the 'ego'. It seems to me that synchronous events in a person's life have to do with the next step for that person. Did they choose it without knowing they chose it? Perhaps. Did some part of a Greater Whole choose it for them? Is there really a difference?

The level or purity of a synchronicity very much has to do with the quality and development of the person receiving it. Self-cultivation (within Kierkegaard's 'three dimensions') might be cultivating sensitivity to Meaning on various platforms. The more interconnections there are between 'levels', the more levels of resonance are possible.

This makes more sense to me. As one develops, new horizons open up, new opportunties arise, new mental links are made, previously ignored aspects of reality are absorbed, different encounters with people occur, etc. New improved organization leading to new improved outcomes.

It still doesn't deserve the dubious, flakey label of "synchronicity", though. Perhaps "serendipity" would be more honest and accurate.

Alex Jacob wrote:Syn-chronicity = things that coincide in time & space. A concurrence. I also think of 'synchronicity' as a sort of 'call & response', a language, a communication, but one that is not language-based (necessarily). The musical simile is very good: an intonation that vibrates other strings.

It is quite unfair to say that perception of synchronicity is titillation of the 'ego'. It seems to me that synchronous events in a person's life have to do with the next step for that person. Did they choose it without knowing they chose it? Perhaps. Did some part of a Greater Whole choose it for them? Is there really a difference?

The level or purity of a synchronicity very much has to do with the quality and development of the person receiving it. Self-cultivation (within Kierkegaard's 'three dimensions') might be cultivating sensitivity to Meaning on various platforms. The more interconnections there are between 'levels', the more levels of resonance are possible.

This makes more sense to me. As one develops, new horizons open up, new opportunties arise, new mental links are made, previously ignored aspects of reality are absorbed, different encounters with people occur, etc. New improved organization leading to new improved outcomes.

It still doesn't deserve the dubious, flakey label of "synchronicity", though. Perhaps "serendipity" would be more honest and accurate.

-

I can respect that line of thinking. I like to think of it like being in a room lit by only a small candle.

As consciousness increases, the flame gets brighter. As the flame gets brighter, you start to notice the existence of things in the room that you never noticed before. Not only that, but these new things have a connection to the old things, so it seems really strange that these new things that never existed before have a connection to the old. Cause and effect, combined with sudden awareness expansion produces a sensation of magic.

Gary...when I say "non-conceptual" it doesn't mean the end. It just means, when you conceptualize you are limiting yourself to a conception.Without a conception you leave the door wide open to possibilities....The Unknown. You can't conceptualize something you have no concept of.

Concepts are in language.Some things are indescribable with human language. No human concept could accurately describe this reality.Sometimes silence is the only answer.In that silence.... you intuit.[/quote]

I know what you mean but think about how we understand anything. "...when you conceptualize you are limiting yourself to a conception." I agree but I call it perspective, without you flounder. Every apprentice I've worked with goes through the same thing, it can be very frustrating but eventually they gain perspective and become a Journeyman.

Moreover you've already identified the problem. "Without a conception you leave the door wide open to possibilities....The Unknown. You can't conceptualize something you have no concept of."

P.S. Does anyone see the existential value of "in everything I do, reality responds accordingly" ?

In its current form, not much. It's far too vague to be meaningful. If you're not talking about cause and effect, then what are you talking about? A moral principle?

Let's consider a specific scenario: A child spies his father on the other side of a busy road and sprints across to him with a big smile on his face, only to be knocked down and killed by a passing car. In what way does "reality respond accordingly" here?

-[/quote]

"I said infinite number of logical truths, not infinite logical truth. " Sorry that was a typo, I meant infinite number of logical truths(same fatal problem).

Secondly the statement itself is not a logically true statement. So I ask, what makes you think what you said is true?

Thirdly, and most importantly, there is a loss of direction. I'll explain with an example. As I am constructing a post and beam building I will be standing and plumbing square posts. How many ways can I plumb the post? It only has four sides to the post, two of which mirror each other. There is not an infinite number of logical truths, only two regarding plumb.

If you're my apprentice helping me plumb the post, you don't need direction from me. You can take direction from the limited amount of possible truth and know the post can only be plumbed in two directions. The apprentice who thinks "infinite" will always be the apprentice. How can they be otherwise, they have no sense of direction.

Lastly, "infinite number of logical truths" doesn't prima fascia address the issue of absence. On some occasions when I produce a condition I not only produce the existence of a particular condition but I also produce the absence of associated conditions. For example, when I produce a building in quality condition, I also produce absence of other conditions...you know, like the owner isn't yelling at me.lol

Generalizing from that experience I've got to wonder, doesn't it take cause to have absence of condition. It seems to me people who believe in "first cause" aren't being honest to what's happening.

Regarding,"in everything I do,..."In what way does "reality respond accordingly" here?" Your example is perfect, now just think about it without your anthropic bias. Is it less vague now? ....there's no hurry to understand, so I'll continue being vague.

Alex Jacob wrote:Syn-chronicity = things that coincide in time & space. A concurrence. I also think of 'synchronicity' as a sort of 'call & response', a language, a communication, but one that is not language-based (necessarily). The musical simile is very good: an intonation that vibrates other strings.

It is quite unfair to say that perception of synchronicity is titillation of the 'ego'. It seems to me that synchronous events in a person's life have to do with the next step for that person. Did they choose it without knowing they chose it? Perhaps. Did some part of a Greater Whole choose it for them? Is there really a difference?

The level or purity of a synchronicity very much has to do with the quality and development of the person receiving it. Self-cultivation (within Kierkegaard's 'three dimensions') might be cultivating sensitivity to Meaning on various platforms. The more interconnections there are between 'levels', the more levels of resonance are possible.

The Art of Setting Up Correspondences is a conscious involvement with or perhaps 'playing in' that acausal connectedness. What comes out of it, again, seems to depend on the sort of person that went in in the first place. Harold Bloom in his book Omens of the Millenia (Presagios del Milenio) makes reference to the Third Book of Enoch when an angelic visitation led to a complete and awesome vision experience where the person became 'like a glowing ember'. But, in popular culture, the crass and vulgar angelology has it that your pet has an angel and you can help your pet's evolution by doing thus and such...

Ideas, ideals, meaning, value, art, truth, love---can be brought to very high levels, or simply never really get off the ground.

PS: I arrived at GF through a very clear synchronicity (good for me, bad for y'all I suppose!) I remember it very clearly. One learns to pay attention to them. It is a sort of 'dance'.

Alex, if I am guessing right, you are a big enough boy to handle some genuine feedback.

To the journeyman your (above) comments turn into blah, blah, blah. Is there anyway to rephrase so a hammer head (like myself) can understand?

Hammer HeadGary

P.S. No disrespect intended, I know you've put in a lot of effort. I would love to benefit, but ....

Similarly, I assume you are a big boy who can, should he decide to, gain knowledge and skill in reading---widely one hopes---so to be able to grasp ideas that are communicated. Don't be offended either if I suggest you need to begin this work of gaining proficiency in reading and not I who must adapt my writing to your reading ability.

What work are you willing to do? You seem to have a good mind...

PS: I do understand why some of what I wrote is not immediately graspable. Perhaps if you mentioned what did make sense and also what did not. I'd be happy to fill you in. Also, you can read about Jung's concept of Synchronicity on a Wiki page, I believe.

But the idea is not new. Signs and omens and the 'reading' of them have been a part of man's consciousness for...well forever. I place.this in the hermeneutic category and by that I mean everything around us and that occurs to us requires interpretation (hermeneutics).

The challenge is simple, insults aren't required. All that's required is one instance, one example.

One example where reality does not respond accordingly. I challenge you to provide one falsifying example. Only one, that's all it will take.

TakeGary

It is obviously an analogy.. follicle in which a hair lives is part of the skin, the skin is us all, your change is filtered through the behaviour of some sum less than more than all and more than none.

Whatshappening wrote:"I said infinite number of logical truths, not infinite logical truth. " Sorry that was a typo, I meant infinite number of logical truths(same fatal problem).

Secondly the statement itself is not a logically true statement. So I ask, what makes you think what you said is true?

The green glob is not a chair, not a fingernail, not a tree, not a proton, not a kidney, not a written mathematical equation, not a .... and so on ad infinitum.

Lastly, "infinite number of logical truths" doesn't prima fascia address the issue of absence. On some occasions when I produce a condition I not only produce the existence of a particular condition but I also produce the absence of associated conditions.

Yes, this relates to my point above. The presence of the glob, or the plumb bob, represents an infinite number of absent conditions.

Generalizing from that experience I've got to wonder, doesn't it take cause to have absence of condition. It seems to me people who believe in "first cause" aren't being honest to what's happening.

Yes, absence of conditions is a causal creation. Nothingness is as much a causal creation as a thing is.

Whatshappening wrote:

David Quinn wrote:

P.S. Does anyone see the existential value of "in everything I do, reality responds accordingly" ?

In its current form, not much. It's far too vague to be meaningful. If you're not talking about cause and effect, then what are you talking about? A moral principle?

Let's consider a specific scenario: A child spies his father on the other side of a busy road and sprints across to him with a big smile on his face, only to be knocked down and killed by a passing car. In what way does "reality respond accordingly" here?

Your example is perfect, now just think about it without your anthropic bias.

Speaking non-anthropically, I already have my own ideas about it, but I was asking you for your explanation. I'm interested. How does your principle apply to the scenario outline above?

Whatshappening wrote:"I said infinite number of logical truths, not infinite logical truth.

-

"The presence of the glob, or the plumb bob, represents an infinite number of absent conditions." That's an assumption, would you provide a logical proof?

Secondly, the claim is inconsistent with experience. Lets go back to plumbing the square post. If what you said is true then there must be an infinite number of out of plumb conditions. Which isn't true, the absence of plumb condition can only occur within 90 degrees(on any particular side). That's not infinite, that's all that's possible.

The problem I have with infinite is that it invokes ideas of lack of limits. Reality isn't like that, it has all sorts of limits. The most notable being, only that which is possible has a chance to manifest. The impossible never happens, or at least I've never seen it.

My consciousness seems to confirm the claim since I never understand the impossible. Like understanding a square circle, I can't do it, can you? Or understanding, out of plumb can be more then 90 degrees.

PlumbGary

P.S. Regarding reality responding ...you said you had some ideas. I would really appreciate hearing them first. I'm curious how easily the concept can be understood without the anthropic bias. I'm trying to learn something, so if you're willing to play ...

Alex Jacob wrote:Similarly, I assume you are a big boy who can, should he decide to, gain knowledge and skill in reading---widely one hopes---so to be able to grasp ideas that are communicated. Don't be offended either if I suggest you need to begin this work of gaining proficiency in reading and not I who must adapt my writing to your reading ability.

What work are you willing to do? You seem to have a good mind...

PS: I do understand why some of what I wrote is not immediately graspable. Perhaps if you mentioned what did make sense and also what did not. I'd be happy to fill you in. Also, you can read about Jung's concept of Synchronicity on a Wiki page, I believe.

But the idea is not new. Signs and omens and the 'reading' of them have been a part of man's consciousness for...well forever. I place.this in the hermeneutic category and by that I mean everything around us and that occurs to us requires interpretation (hermeneutics).

You've put me in awkward spot, with two mutually exclusive conditions. You want me to tell you what did and didn't make sense but at the same time recognize the requirement for interpretation. That needs some cognitive clarification, it seems like you're asking me to do something you're supposed to be doing.

Reading was an invaluable part of my past, now I'm too busy digesting the 2 or 3 things I've learnt.

Whatshappening wrote:"I said infinite number of logical truths, not infinite logical truth.

-

"The presence of the glob, or the plumb bob, represents an infinite number of absent conditions." That's an assumption, would you provide a logical proof?

Secondly, the claim is inconsistent with experience. Lets go back to plumbing the square post. If what you said is true then there must be an infinite number of out of plumb conditions. Which isn't true, the absence of plumb condition can only occur within 90 degrees(on any particular side). That's not infinite, that's all that's possible.

The problem I have with infinite is that it invokes ideas of lack of limits. Reality isn't like that, it has all sorts of limits. The most notable being, only that which is possible has a chance to manifest. The impossible never happens, or at least I've never seen it.

My consciousness seems to confirm the claim since I never understand the impossible. Like understanding a square circle, I can't do it, can you? Or understanding, out of plumb can be more then 90 degrees.

PlumbGary

P.S. Regarding reality responding ...you said you had some ideas. I would really appreciate hearing them first. I'm curious how easily the concept can be understood without the anthropic bias. I'm trying to learn something, so if you're willing to play ...

You should look into mathematics, you'd find it fascinating, ideas everywhere that will challenge yours greatly.

Whatshappening wrote:"The presence of the glob, or the plumb bob, represents an infinite number of absent conditions." That's an assumption, would you provide a logical proof?

When causal conditions produce a green glob in the sky (itself a causal condition), they do not produce a brown chair there (i.e. an absent condition is produced), nor do they produce a fingernail, nor a tree, nor a proton, nor a kidney, nor a written mathematical equation, nor a .... and so on ad infinitum.

Secondly, the claim is inconsistent with experience. Lets go back to plumbing the square post. If what you said is true then there must be an infinite number of out of plumb conditions. Which isn't true, the absence of plumb condition can only occur within 90 degrees(on any particular side). That's not infinite, that's all that's possible.

If you break the plumbing equipment into pieces, there is an out of plumb condition. If a giant bird comes along and plucks it away, there is an out of plumb condition. If it gets swallowed up by a black hole, there is an out of plumb condition .... and so on ad infinitum.

The problem I have with infinite is that it invokes ideas of lack of limits. Reality isn't like that, it has all sorts of limits. The most notable being, only that which is possible has a chance to manifest. The impossible never happens, or at least I've never seen it.

True, things like square circles and married bachelors can never manifest, but that still leaves room for countless possible things to manifest. Reality does contain various limits, but it also has its infinities as well. A single object can be viewed in countless different ways from countless different perspectives; our minds can mentally divide the object into countless different parts in countless different ways.

And reality itself, as a whole, can have no limits since it embraces utterly everything. There can never be a point where reality ends and something else begins.

P.S. Regarding reality responding ...you said you had some ideas. I would really appreciate hearing them first. I'm curious how easily the concept can be understood without the anthropic bias. I'm trying to learn something, so if you're willing to play ...

I've already alluded to my ideas about it. The scenario is causality at play. Countless causal conditions coming together - causal conditions involving how the father came to be there just at that point, how the child came to be there, how the car came to be there, how the road came to be there, how the atoms in the road came to be there, how gravity came to be there, etc, etc, etc - countless causal conditions coming together to produce an event which, in Nature's eyes, carries no significance whatsoever.

My view on this is that it involves always true observations such as the path of least resistance, which is the most fundamental observable CAUSE of change, or cause of causality for that matter.

For the path of least existence to be true then a form of universal “logic” exists in everything in terms of awareness of the relative power of what is affecting it, and its capability to in turn affect what it is affecting it.

One could even say the path of least resistance is the underlying cause of logic, as it is the primary acknowledgment of A and Not A. This universal recognition of A and Not A as a set is the first level of Information and without Information there could be no reason for non-randomness, thus causality would not exist.

In a sense the above statements are still faulty, as they involves 2 uncaused “magics” – A, Not-A ....and the resulting effect being the path of least resistance.

And here I go off again into my own little world :)

With my Expanding Time-energy theory the path of least resistance and its necessary awareness of A and Not-A does not necessarily exist as a primary cause. This theory does not involve A and Not-A, but the continual evolutionary process of A1 expanding to A1-A2, A1-A2-A3, A1-A2-A3-A4, A1-A2-A3-A4-A5 ~ up to NOW, where each A does not “internally” change or ever diminish in any way, so there is no actual Not-A. Instead of Not-A there exists only that A1 is not the same as A1-A2 and so on, and thus information, non-sameness, is caused by relativity.

With this theory the path of least residence is not a preceding law that is a parameter of causality, and there is no need for any form of “degree of power awareness” between A1 and A1-A2 due to the fact that A1 has zero separation from A1-A2 – the whole thing is just one continuously growing infinity, and there is nothing outside of it for it to be aware of. There is just an intrinsic infinite duality of older time thus lesser and newer Time thus greater.

In things though this infinite linear path of growth is not pure, something has stirred the Totality pot and caused breaks in continuity, so that Time streams of different ages intermingle, resulting in massive differentiation across spatial areas. This is the result of each expansion of time creating a new linear stream, creating an infinity of time layers, which as a set results the non-linearity of the 3 dimensions + the 1 overarching linear dimension of times arrow (Time expands – never contracts, so is linear) in as perA1 expanding to A1-A2, A1-A2-A3, A1-A2-A3-A4 ~A2 expanding to A2-A3, A2-A3-A4, A2-A3-A4-A5 ~A3 expanding to A3-A4, A3-A4-A5, A3-A4-A5-A6 ~

The only “magic” left is what causes time to expand. Well, if expansion of self is what it is, is all it is, then on what basis is there any need for it to be caused. It is not caused, as there are no externalities. As we all see that there at least one thing and/or one totality, then there is automatically a logical requirement for there to be an Infinity of some form behind that something. As infinity is essential then by default there can be no predecessor of nothingness, there can be no first creationary cause of the totality. There can only be a continuous first cause in a hierarchical evolutionary sense, meaning there must be continuous creation (expansion) that evolves into observable things). So in the end there is no magic in there not being a first cause, there is just our negative emotional reaction to the seeming logical disconnect between the fact that every Thing we observe does have a beginning and an ending (even where the these are by logical extension only, such as the beginning and ending of a black hole) and the fact that The Totality cannot have these attributes.

Any instance of time has duration.We may speak of the age of the universe or the time it takes for light to traverse the diameter of a proton-each segment of time has a duration such that its beginning is not simultaneous with its end.Such a period therefore has a beginning and an end.Its not identical with its beginning, otherwise it would not exist at its end and vice versa.

Since its not its beginning or end, it cannot be both its beginning and its end.One might hypothesise that it is the same as the complete set of its beginning, middle and end.In that case, it would not exist at its beginning, middle, or end, for that complete set is not present at any of those times.It 'has' a beginning, middle and end, but it does not exist independently of them, otherwise it could exist in their absence.

Any period of time is conceptually designated on something it is not.It is not findible under analysis, so we conclude that its existence is purely conventional.Thus time does not exist absolutely with respect to either physical or mental events.Time as it is conceived by the human mind does not exist in some independent, objective world, it exists only in relation to the mind that conceives it.

Any region of space, from the volume of a quark to the expanse of the universe has extension.From any given perspective, it has a front side and a back side and the two are not the same.As for time, the analysis demonstrates that a region of space is not identical with any of its parts, nor with the complete set of its parts.If it were the same as the complete set of its parts, it would never be possible for a body to enter that space, for its impossible to enter all its parts simultaneously.The body would have to enter the front before it got to the back.Clearly, it is meaningless to speak of space as independent from all its parts.So we conclude that space is not absolute.It exists in dependence upon mental designation.

Anything that is inspected or conceived as being existent.In each case we find that that entity is known by certain defining characteristics.It 'has' those characteristics and cannot be equated with them.Under such analysis, nothing can be found that exists in its own nature, independent of conceptual designation.